


Give Me One More Night With You

by EmmyLouWho



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Crushes, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, No Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 10:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12679779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmyLouWho/pseuds/EmmyLouWho
Summary: Louis turns up at Nick’s door on Saturday night, carrying a bottle of wine that he’d picked out at random at a Sainsburys on the way there.He’d spent ages trying to figure out what you were supposed to wear when you’re going over to somebody’s house so they can thank you for looking after their dog butreallyyou were effectively keeping their dog hostage and youalsothink that that person is really cute and you’re trying not to be weird about it. His Google search had been, perhaps unsurprisingly, not very helpful.Or, the one where Pig turns up on Louis' doorstep one day, and Louis has a crush.





	Give Me One More Night With You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [achapterends](https://archiveofourown.org/users/achapterends/gifts).



> Hi! 
> 
> This is my first ever fic exchange, and I'm very happy to be a part of it! :) 
> 
> Title is from the song 'Don't You Go' by All Time Low. 
> 
> For achapterends, your prompts were all great but this is the one that appealed to me the most. I hope you like the end result!

Louis’ life turns upside down on a Tuesday. 

It starts normally, like any other weekday in his boring quasi-adult life. 

Louis gets up, makes his cereal, goes to work, comes home, gets himself a beer, and sits down on his sofa to watch some TV and distract himself from the fact that he’s twenty five years old and still working a shitty entry level office job and coming home to an empty one-bedroom flat and a Tesco microwave dinner for one. 

He’s just sat down and started flicking through the channels, trying to find something to watch other than the news or an old Antiques Roadshow rerun, when he hears a noise at his front door. He pauses, beer bottle halfway to his mouth, and waits to see if he can hear it again. It’s quiet for a minute, and Louis is just about to turn his attention back to the telly when he hears the noise again, louder this time. 

He sighs, and puts his bottle down on the tiny coffee table. Last week, one of the kids that lives a few doors down had been caught egging some of the neighbours’ houses, and it had sent the local gossip mill into a frenzy. Louis had ended up spending a few hours that day helping one of his elderly neighbours clean rotten egg off her front windows, and then another hour after that trying to scrub the smell off in the shower. He isn’t expecting any visitors, and there’s no reason for anyone to be sneaking around his front door, and so he’s half expecting to open the door to find the local prankster at it again. He’s already taken a big breath, ready to start to tell the kid off, but when he opens the door, it huffs out in surprise. 

There’s a dog sitting on his welcome mat. 

It’s white, with one black ear, and it’s wagging its tail like it’s excited to see him. 

“Um,” says Louis. “Hello.” 

He feels a bit stupid, then, talking to a dog that’s somehow turned up on his doorstep, but the dog looks up at him, big doggy grin on its face, and he can’t help but smile back. He’s just wondering whether or not he should try and pat it, when the dog gets to its feet, and trots closer to Louis, rubbing its face along his calf and getting drool on his trackies. 

He crouches down, and starts petting his friendly visitor, laughing as its tail starts wagging even more madly in excitement. _Her_ tail, he notes, as she puts her paws up on his legs to get closer. 

“What are you doing here, then, hey?” he asks, rubbing her tummy. “Shouldn’t you be at home having your dinner?” She looks up at the word _dinner_ , but of course she doesn’t provide any explanation. Louis supposes he will have to figure this one out on his own. 

He scritches along her neck, and notices a small silver tag attached to the dog’s collar. _Bingo._

“Don’t worry,” Louis says. The dog does not look worried. “I’ll give your person a call and we’ll get you back where you belong.” 

He picks up the tag, the dog whining softly as he stops patting her. 

_PIG_ , the tag reads, text printed neatly in small capital letters. 

“Pig?” Louis says incredulously, and the dog grins up at him. “That’s a terrible name for a dog.” If he had a dog, he would give it a _proper_ dog name, like Max, or Spot, or like, Clifford, or something. Not that he’s given that a lot of thought. 

He flips the tag over, looking for the dog’s – Pig’s – owner’s contact information. There’s a phone number printed there, and Louis is relieved, until he realises that most of the little numbers have worn off. There’s definitely a five, a four, and then what might be a three or an eight, but the rest is completely unreadable. He sighs, and looks at the dog wagging her tail in front of him. 

“What are we going to do now, huh?” he asks, patting her head. 

Pig looks up at him, excitement in her eyes, and Louis can feel his heart melting. Right. 

“C’mon then, pretty girl,” he says, “let’s go find you something to eat.” 

Pig trots into his flat behind him, stopping to sniff at his shoe pile and his sofa and his kitchen table. Louis doesn’t have any dog food in his cupboards – why would he? – but he does have some leftover lasagne in the fridge. He’s not sure whether it’s okay to feed Pig human food, so he pulls out his phone to ring Liam and ask him. Liam has always been a dog lover, ever since Louis first met him at secondary, and he now has several dogs of his own, so Louis figures he’s basically an expert on dog care. 

The phone only rings three times before Liam picks up, which Louis thinks is either a sign of their true friendship, or possibly that Liam’s life is just as boring as his is these days.

“Hey, Tommo,” Liam says in greeting, “get your hand stuck in a jar again?” 

“Fuck off, Payno,” Louis says, and Liam cackles. “That happened like, three years ago, and you promised you wouldn’t bring it up anymore.” 

“It was _last month_ , Lou, and I made no such promise.” 

Louis rolls his eyes, and rubs his hand absently. That jar had really hurt. 

“So what’s up, then?” Liam asks. 

“Hypothetically,” Louis starts, and ignores Liam’s muttered _”Oh god, here we go”_ , “if a person had a dog in their house, would it be okay for that person to feed the dog leftover lasagne because they don’t have any dog food?” 

“You have a _dog_?” Liam shouts.

“No,” Louis says weakly, “it was a hypothetical.”

“How on earth did you end up with a dog, Lou?”

Louis sighs, and explains to Liam how he’d found Pig sitting on his doorstep, and how he couldn’t read the contact number on her tag so he was going to keep her for the night until he could find her owner the next day. Liam seems concerned with this plan, but nevertheless tells Louis that he won’t poison Pig by feeding her human food tonight, but that he should go and buy some proper dog food tomorrow for her. Louis tells him that it won’t be necessary, because she’ll definitely be gone tomorrow, but after he hangs up the phone he pulls up the notes app and adds ‘dog food’ in capital letters at the top of his shopping list. Just in case, he tells himself. 

*

On Thursday, Louis is once again lounging on the sofa, relaxing after work. He’d finally finished a big project at work that he’d been working on for ages, and so he’d treated himself to a takeaway curry for dinner. He’s feeling pretty content, belly full and all snuggled up in his comfiest trackies, scrolling through Netflix for something new to watch. 

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out to see a Facebook notification. 

_Liam Payne mentioned you in a comment._

Louis groans as he swipes his thumb across the screen, expecting it to be another terrible meme. Liam’s always tagging him in stupid stuff, and Louis reckons Liam must have found another one of those ‘tag a friend so they have to open their phone just to see this piece of toast/rock/lizard’ things. 

It’s not though, and Louis’ heart stops as his mobile loads up a photo of what is clearly Pig, posing with her head tilted to the side, and the word “MISSING” splashed across the top of the photo in bright red letters. He reads the caption underneath in a daze, the desperate pleas for information as to her whereabouts, and the offer of a hundred pound reward for her safe return. Her owner – some guy named Nick, apparently – obviously really loves his dog, which doesn’t really surprise Louis, considering how Pig seems to be used to being spoiled. 

Nick’s Facebook post has been shared a couple of times, and there are a load of comments underneath. Most of them are just people offering their support and hoping that Pig gets home safe soon, and then there are a handful of others who have tagged people who might be able to help. 

Liam’s comment sits neatly at the bottom, just the _@Louis Tomlinson_ mention with no further commentary. Louis stares at it until his iPhone screen goes black. 

He’s wanted to get Pig back home to her owner since she’d first turned up at his door, but now that he’s actually faced with the prospect of giving her back he’s not so sure that he’s on board with that plan any more. It’s only been two days, but he’s gotten pretty used to having Pig around for company, and he’ll miss her terribly when she leaves him all alone in the house again. 

As if sensing his distress, Pig comes trotting into the lounge room, jumping up onto the sofa and cuddling up to his side. Louis pats her head absentmindedly, his heart in his stomach. He had promised himself when he took Pig in that he wouldn’t get attached, but that vow flew out the window about five seconds in. The very first time that she’d licked his hand, nudging up against his side and practically begging for pats, Louis had been a goner. 

One more day wouldn’t hurt, he thinks. One more day, and then he’ll get in touch with this Nick person and tell him that he has his dog. Yeah. 

*

The problem is, one more day turns into two, and then three, and suddenly it’s been almost a week since that Tuesday that Louis had opened his door to find a dog on his welcome mat, and he still hasn’t given Pig back. 

They have a routine now, him and Pig. Every morning they get up early and go for a walk, and then Louis makes his cereal and feeds Pig the dog food he’d carefully picked out at the supermarket, and then Louis goes to work, and comes home to find Pig waiting at the door for him. Louis has dinner, and then they settle down on the sofa and watch some TV together (Pig is also an X Factor fan, Louis has discovered), and then they go to bed, Pig curled up at Louis’ feet. 

Every night, Louis announces that this will be the last time, that tomorrow he’s going to give Nick a call and return Pig, and then every morning, he wakes up to Pig’s doggy grin in his face and he can’t bring himself to pick up the phone. 

In the meantime, Louis has been stalking Nick on social media and feeling guilty. 

Most of Nick’s Facebook page is on private, but his profile picture is a shot of him and Pig out for a walk, both of them grinning widely at the camera. On the second day, Louis had found Nick’s Instagram, which was full of photos of Nick, with Pig, with friends, heaps of selfies with dumb Snapchat filters – and Louis’ never understood that, really, why people take their Snapchat selfies and then post them on their other social media pages – and it’s with a sense of growing terror that Louis realises that Nick is absolutely gorgeous. He might be a pretentious hipster with terrible taste in music and a stupid haircut and a propensity for silly animal filters, but he has a really nice smile and nice eyes and even nice _knees_ poking out of his stupid ripped jeans, and oh god, Louis has a crush. He has a crush on the man whose dog he’s practically kidnapped. 

Shit. 

Louis has done a lot of stupid things in his life (case in point: hand, jar), but this one would definitely be up there with the worst of them. 

He quickly exits out of the Instagram app, where he’d be scrolling Nick’s profile _again_ , and pulls up his camera to take another photo of Pig snoozing on his lap. At this point, Louis’ camera roll has been completely overtaken by photos he’s taken of Pig. He has a week’s worth of selfies, and pics of Pig watching herself in the floor length mirror hanging on the front of his wardrobe, and snuggled up on Louis’ bed, and grinning at the camera after dinner. 

Louis has gotten to know Pig pretty well, now, he thinks. He knows that she prefers the beef dog food and _definitely_ never the lamb variety, and that she refuses to go to sleep anywhere other than the left side of the bed, but that he’ll probably wake up with her lying across his legs. He knows that she likes walks, and hates water, and he knows that she’ll always be waiting for him at the door when he gets home, tail wagging. 

Most importantly, he knows that he can’t keep Pig forever, even if he wanted to. Besides the fact that she belongs to someone else who is obviously trying very hard to find her, he’s not allowed to have pets in his rental flat, so technically right now he’s breaking the tenancy agreement and risking not getting his bond back if his landlord learns about it. He’s certain his nosy neighbour Janet would report him if she found out, as she seems to have it in for him (honestly, you play loud music _one time_ and then you’re the devil for the rest of eternity, apparently). He’s been making do by keeping Pig inside mostly, taking her out to his little square of grass out back to do her business when she needs, and getting up an hour earlier than normal so that he can go walk Pig in the mornings before he goes to work while it’s still dark outside. Luckily, Pig has been a rather well-behaved houseguest, and hasn’t really barked or made too much noise. He knows though that Pig deserves better, and so it’s with a heavy feeling of dread that he picks up his phone the next morning and decides that it’s time. Time to get Pig back to her _real_ home. 

Nick had included his phone number on his Facebook post looking for Pig, and Louis had saved it into his contacts. He’d spent more time than he’d like to admit staring at it guiltily. This time, he’s finally going to use it. He opens a new text message, takes a deep breath, and starts to type. 

_Hi mate ! My name’s Louis, and I think I have your dog …_

He attaches a photo of Pig, one of his favourites that he’s taken, where she’s curled up on his sofa, looking up at him like she’s a queen and Louis is just one of her lowly subjects. It’s a pretty accurate representation of their dynamic, actually. 

He sends the message and locks his phone, moving to put it back in his pocket, but to his surprise it’s already buzzing with an incoming call. His screen is lighting up with a close-up photo of Nick grinning at the camera that Louis had screenshotted from Nick’s Instagram, feeling embarrassed as he did it but not enough to stop himself from saving a few others too. Just so that he could show them to Pig, of course, in case she was missing Nick badly or something, definitely not because he also liked to look at them, because that would be weird and embarrassing. 

He takes a deep breath and answers the call. 

“Hello?”

“Hiya,” Nick says quickly. “This is Nick.”

“Hi,” says Louis, feeling like an idiot. “I’m Louis.” 

“Is Pig okay?”

“Oh,” Louis swallows. “Yeah, she’s fine. She turned up at my doorstep, and I’ve been looking after her,” he explains. 

“Thank god,” Nick says, “I’ve been worried sick. I couldn’t stop thinking about where she might be, or what might have happened to her…” He exhales deeply, and Louis feels a pang in his chest. 

“Well, she’s safe and sound with me,” Louis says, trying to sound reassuring. “I tried to call you when she first turned up at my place, but your number’s worn off on her tag.” 

“Shit,” says Nick. “I had no idea! Sorry, god.”

“All good,” Louis says, “Lucky for Facebook, hey?”

“Yeah. Sorry, again,” Nick says. “She’s never run away or anything before, she’s always so behaved. I don’t know what happened.” 

Louis makes a noncommittal sort of reassuring noise down the phone, not sure what else to say. 

“Can I come by and pick her up now?” Nick asks. 

“Um, sure,” Louis says. He tells Nick his address, and they realise they only live about fifteen minutes away from each other on foot. 

 

Nick turns up on his doorstep thirteen minutes later, phone in one hand and a dog leash in the other. Pig rushes towards him as soon as Louis opens the door, head butting his legs and licking Nick’s hands where he reaches down to cuddle her. 

“Hiya, Pig Dog,” he says, “hi Piggy. I’ve missed you, never ever run away from me ever again, I’ve got about six new grey hairs now from the stress.”

Nick doesn’t have any grey hairs. He looks really good, actually, in Louis’ opinion. Tired, maybe, but he’s got on a big stripy jumper that looks really soft, and would probably be really nice to cuddle up against, and - 

“Hi,” Nick says, looking up at him from where he’s still crouched on the ground, Pig pawing at him in excitement. “Sorry, didn’t even get a chance to introduce myself before I was attacked by this one, how rude of me. I’m Nick.” He’s grinning, and Louis can’t help but grin back. 

“Nice to meet you,” Louis says, and shakes Nick’s hand when he extends it. 

“I hope this one hasn’t been too much of a bother,” says Nick, scratching Pig behind her ears. 

“Not at all,” Louis says, crouching down so he can pat her too. “She’s been rather nice company, actually.” 

“Well I really appreciate you looking after her,” Nick says, “seriously. I can’t thank you enough for finding her and getting her back to me safe and sound.” 

“No problem, really.” 

“So the Facebook post mentioned a reward…” Nick’s pulling out his wallet, producing a couple of fifty pound notes. 

“Oh no,” Louis says quickly. “I can’t accept that, honestly, it’s fine.” There’s no way he’s taking money from him. 

Nick is persistent, holding the money out to him. “No, take it, you must have been inconvenienced, and then food and all that…” 

“No,” Louis says, “I’m just glad she’s back where she belongs.” 

He smiles, and tries not to look like there’s a bunch of rocks in his stomach, which is how he feels. 

Nick frowns, but he does put his wallet away. Thank god. 

“Well, you have to let me say thank you somehow,” he says. “What about dinner sometime? I make a pretty good pasta.”

“Sure,” Louis says, because he’s pretty sure Nick is only making the offer to be polite, and he’ll never hear from him or Pig again after they leave his flat today. 

“Great,” says Nick, looking pleased. “I’ll text you.” 

He won’t. 

“Alright then,” Nick is saying, “we’d better go then, Pig Dog. Get you back home and let Louis get back to his peace and quiet.” 

“Bye, Pig,” Louis says, trying to sound cheerful. “You were an excellent house guest.” He gives her one last tummy rub, and makes himself step back. 

Nick clips the leash onto Pig’s collar. “Say bye, Piggy,” he says. “Say ‘thank you Louis for looking after me and not letting me wander the streets all alone and starve to death.’” 

Pig grins up at Louis, wagging her tail, and Nick laughs. 

“Close enough.” 

Louis waves them off from the doorstep, watching them as they walk away. He can hear Nick giving Pig another lecture on never ever running away again, and he stays standing there long after they turn the corner and are out of sight. 

Eventually, he makes himself move, heading back into his now-silent flat. Louis bypasses the sofa, and crawls straight into bed, pulling the duvet up to cover his head. Pig wasn’t _his_ , and he doesn’t think he really has a right to mourn for her, considering she’s back at her proper home now, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t feeling that way anyway. He’s lonely already, the flat feeling too empty without the sound of Pig trotting around. 

It doesn’t help that he’s feeling out of sorts from meeting Nick. The fact that he had been just as good looking in real life as he was in his social media selfies had been a pleasant surprise; as the two short-lived weeks in uni that Louis had spent trying out Grindr had taught him that it wasn’t actually a very common occurrence in this age of filters and editing. 

But Nick had been cute, and he’d been nice, and then he’d left and taken Pig with him, and now Louis has nothing but this comfy bed and the family sized tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream that he’d been saving for a bad day. 

He’s just gotten himself cocooned properly, blankets tucked under him in just the right way, when he feels his phone buzz with a message. He doesn’t want to mess up his arrangement just to retrieve his phone from his pocket, so he ignores it, but then it buzzes twice more in quick succession. He wriggles around until he can free his arm, and he pulls out his phone to see the messages are from Nick. His heart skips a beat when he sees his name on the screen, which is quite frankly embarrassing. 

_Home safe!!_ , the first message reads, followed by a dog emoji, a house emoji, and a pink sparkly heart. There’s a picture attached of Pig sitting on what Louis assumes is Nick’s sofa, and then a selfie of the two of them together, grinning at the camera. Louis saves both of them to his phone. 

The final message makes him freeze. 

_so I was serious about that dinner_ , it says, _I want to thank you properly for looking after her. Is Saturday night okay for you? Nick x_

When his brain finally starts working again, it’s like his thumbs have a mind of their own, typing out a reply straight away. 

_Hi! You really don’t have to thank me. But I am free on Saturday, if you insist ! x_

Louis agonises over the ‘x’ at the end of his message, and deletes and re-types it a handful of times, not sure whether it’s too much. In the end, he leaves it there, figuring Nick had done it first. 

_Excellent,_ Nick replies, _Pig and I are looking forward to it xx_

Louis sends him back a smiley face, and shoves his face into his pillow. 

*

He turns up at Nick’s door on Saturday night, carrying a bottle of wine that he’d picked out at random at a Sainsburys on the way there. 

He’d spent ages trying to figure out what you were supposed to wear when you’re going over to somebody’s house so they can thank you for looking after their dog but _really_ you were effectively keeping their dog hostage and you _also_ think that that person is really cute and you’re trying not to be weird about it. His Google search had been, perhaps unsurprisingly, not very helpful. 

In the end, he’d ended up wearing his best pair of black skinnies paired with his cleanest pair of non-work shoes and a plain black shirt. The wine had been a last minute purchase, because his mum had always raised him to bring a gift if you were going over to someone’s house, and while Louis wasn’t sure if that rule still applied when you were invited over for a thank you dinner, he decided it was better to be safe than sorry. 

Nick had sent him a message with his address earlier in the week, and they’d been texting on and off ever since. He’d been surprised by how easy their conversations were, and by the fact that they didn’t even just talk about Pig the whole time. Last night, they’d spent a good forty five minutes debating – of all things – whether dessert pizzas were genius or a crime against food. The results had been inconclusive. 

In the end, Nick’s place had been easy to find, and it was indeed within walking distance of Louis’ own flat. He was glad for the walk, giving him a chance to work off some of his nervous energy before he got there. Even though they’d been talking, he was still a bit apprehensive about how tonight was going to go. 

He rings the doorbell, wiping his palms on his jeans. 

Nick opens the door, all smiles and tall hair, and invites him in. Pig comes running around the corner when they walk in, and she barrels straight into Louis’ legs. 

“Oh, I see how it is,” Nick says, laughing. “I’ve officially been replaced as her favourite.”

Louis crouches down and gives Pig a cuddle, and she huffs excitedly. 

“Hi, gorgeous,” he says, rubbing behind her ears. “I’ve missed you!”

Nick crouches down beside him, and reaches for Pig’s collar. 

“Look,” he says, picking up her tag to show Louis. “New tag, contact information _fully intact_.” 

“Well done,” Louis says, “now the next time Pig runs away, the poor soul who finds her won’t have to endure the _terrible_ misfortune of spending a week with your horrible, not even a little bit cute, terror of a dog.” 

“Ha, ha,” says Nick. “She is a joy and a delight, and you know it. You _literally_ kept Pig with you for longer than necessary because you enjoyed having her around so much.” 

Louis goes pink. “Um,” he says. “I did do that. Sorry.” 

Nick laughs. “It’s okay,” he says, “I don’t blame you. I’m just glad that she’s okay, and that she’s home safe and sound. If she had to have an extended holiday with you first, then I’m not going to complain.” 

Louis’ not really sure what to say to that, or how to deal with Nick smiling at him, so he concentrates on patting Pig. 

“Right,” Nick says. “I should get back to dinner. Did you want to come through to the kitchen?” 

Louis follows him through the flat. There’s artwork hanging on all the walls, and it’s pretty similar to how he’d imagined it. The kitchen is small, but tidy, and Louis can see a pot bubbling on the stove. It smells _delicious_ , and Louis’ stomach grumbles. Nick takes Louis’ bottle of wine and opens it, pulling down two wine glasses from one of the overhead cabinets. 

“Do you need me to help with anything?” he asks. 

“No, thanks, it’s almost ready.” 

Louis watches as Nick drains the pasta expertly, pouring the sauce over the top and plating the food neatly. He’s not sure what’s in the dish, but it looks amazing. 

Nick carries the plates over to the little dining table, and they both sit down. Pig’s lying in the doorway, chewing on a plush toy and watching them carefully. 

“Cheers,” Nick says, lifting his wine glass. Louis echoes him, clinking their glasses together with a soft smile. 

The lighting in the room is dim, and Nick’s got a tablecloth on his table, and Louis has to keep reminding himself that this isn’t a date, that he shouldn’t knock his knees up against Nick’s under the table, no matter how much his entire being wants to do that. No, this is just Nick being friendly and making him dinner out of some feeling of obligation. 

It gets harder and harder to remember that as the night progresses, the two of them getting slightly tipsy on the – quite frankly, terrible – wine that Louis had brought, feeling warm and full of delicious pasta. 

They move to the sofa once they’re finished with dinner, Nick pressed up against his side and Pig curled up at his feet as they watch Gilmore Girls on Netflix. Louis had mentioned how it was one of his sisters’ favourite shows growing up, and Nick had confessed that he’d never seen it, so Louis had made it his mission to introduce him to the delight that was Stars Hollow. It’s backfired on him, though, because now he can feel the warmth of Nick’s arm through his shirt, and he can’t stop thinking about what it might be like to kiss him. 

He tries to concentrate on the laptop, but it’s a lost cause, and so at the end of the episode he claims tiredness and says goodbye. He gives Pig another cuddle before he goes, and thanks Nick for dinner. He waves at them both through the window as he leaves, carrying a container of leftovers that Nick had pressed into his hands as he went. 

He flops straight down onto his bed when he gets home, and pulls his phone out to find a text waiting for him.

_Pig’s all tuckered out from her exciting night,_ Nick’s written, _she enjoyed seeing you again! If you’re up for it we could arrange another play date for her soon so she doesn’t miss you too much?_. 

Louis grins, and starts to type. 

* 

Over the next couple of weeks, they hang out a handful of times. They barely go three days without Nick sending Louis a text claiming that Pig is missing him and he should come over, or Louis demanding that Nick and Pig meet him in the park so they can have a play date. 

They have lunch, and take Pig out for long walks together, and spend hours throwing the ball at the dog park so she can socialise with other dogs. Even Liam has started to comment to Louis about how he can never hang out anymore because he’s always with Nick. 

At this point, Louis is starting to realise that maybe their relationship is not quite as platonic as he had originally resigned himself to, and he’s pretty sure that he’s not the only one who is using Pig as an excuse to hang out. 

His suspicions are confirmed when Nick invites him over to dinner one day, and he’s been there for a full half hour, laughing as he listens to Nick tell him a story about a terrible client he’d had at work that day, before he realises that Pig isn’t even there. 

When he points it out, Nick goes quiet.

“Oh,” he says, “yeah, she’s at Aimee’s tonight.” 

“Oh,” says Louis. 

“Sorry,” Nick says, “I forgot. Did you want to go, then? I know you’re here to see Pig, not me.” 

“No,” Louis says, “I don’t want to go.” 

Nick is quiet, watching him carefully. 

“Okay,” he says, after a while. “Cool.” 

“You know that’s not true, right?”

“What?”

“That I’m only here to see Pig,” Louis says. 

“Oh,” says Nick, again. 

“Yeah.” 

“Me either,” Nick says, quickly. “I quite like having you around, actually.” 

Louis can feel his cheeks getting pink. He’s just realised how close they’re sitting, and Nick’s hand is _right there_. If he was a little bit braver, he might reach over and take it in his, because he’d quite like to hold Nick’s hand. It looks like it would fit with his quite nicely. 

“I like being here,” he says instead. 

This is not at all what he’d expected when he’d come over today. At first, he’d been convinced that his crush was one-sided, destined to be unrequited forever. Even recently, when he’d started to hope that maybe that wasn’t the case, he hadn’t dared to think that they’d actually _talk_ about it. 

He’s shocked out of his internal crisis when Nick makes the first move, reaching over to rest his hand on Louis’ knee. Louis takes hold of it cautiously, tangling their fingers together when Nick smiles at him reassuringly. 

“So.”

“So,” Louis echoes. 

“I guess now is as good a time as any to confess that I’ve had a giant crush on you ever since we met?” 

“Me too,” Louis confesses, “or before that even, since I stalked your Instagram pretty hard.” 

Nick laughs. “Ooh, you think I’m _pretty!_ ” 

“Shut up,” says Louis, “you know you’re pretty. Nobody posts that many selfies without being self-aware of their own prettiness.” 

“You’re not too bad yourself, Tomlinson,” Nick says, lifting up his free hand to trail one finger down Louis’ cheek. 

Louis’ laughter dies in his throat. 

“Just do it, already,” he says. 

“Do what?” Nick asks, but he’s already leaning in. 

Their lips meet, and it’s soft, and perfect. Kissing Nick is even better than he’d imagined, those few times that he’d let himself indulge in his wildest dreams. He has Nick’s hand in his, and the other cradling his head, and it feels _right_. 

It could be minutes, or it could be hours, Louis really isn’t sure, but when they eventually pull apart, he notices that it’s started to get dark outside. 

“So,” Nick says, and Louis laughs. “Would you like to do on a date with me sometime?” 

“A proper one,” he says, “where we both know it’s a date and we get dressed up and I buy you flowers and we go to a restaurant and play footsie under the table.” 

“I like tulips,” Louis says. “Preferably pink ones.” 

“Noted,” Nick says, pretending to write it down on an imaginary notebook. “Any other requests, then?” 

Louis pretends to think about it, and then leans in to press another kiss to Nick’s mouth. 

“Nah,” he says, smiling ear to ear. “I think I’m quite alright.” 

* 

_One year later:_

There are a lot of things that Louis loves about living with Nick and Pig. Being woken up at six AM by an overexcited tongue in his face is not one of them. 

“Nick,” he says, “put that thing away.” 

“Ha, ha,” Nick says. “Very funny.” 

Louis cracks one eye open. He thinks he’s very funny actually, and he’s sure Pig would agree with him if she could talk. He pulls the duvet up and over his head to stop Pig licking him, and hopes that maybe if he just pretends they’re not there they’ll go away. 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work, and Nick pulls the duvet back again. 

“C’mon,” he says. “Time to get up.” 

“It’s six,” Louis says, pointing at the clock. “In the morning, Nick, the sun’s not even up yet.” 

“Awww,” Nick coos, “poor love.” 

“Don’t patronise me,” Louis says. “Why do we have to get up so early?”

“Because the shelter – that you picked out, remember – is an hour’s drive away.” 

“And of course I made our appointment for eight, because apparently I hate myself.” 

“Maybe,” Nick agrees, “or maybe you were just so excited about the new puppy that you didn’t want to wait any longer than you had to.” 

Ooh. Louis _is_ really excited to go pick up their new dog. He throws off the blankets, and gets out of bed, making Nick laugh. Louis flips him off, and then presses forward onto his tippy toes so he can press a kiss to Nick’s cheek. 

“G’morning,” he says. 

“Morning, love,” Nick says. “I’ll go put the kettle on.” 

They’d been talking about getting a new dog for a while, and now that Louis was officially living in Nick’s flat, and they were all settled and ready, they’d decided that it was time. 

Louis had been a bit worried about how Pig would react to having to share their attention, but Nick reckons she’ll be pleased to have a new friend to play with. Louis’ looking forward to having another dog to spoil too, and he’s excited about doing this together with Nick. This feels quite important, expanding their little family, and Louis can’t wait. 

He gets dressed, and fixes his bed head, and goes out to the kitchen to find Nick humming to himself. There’s a bowl of cereal and a plate of buttered toast sitting on the counter, and Nick’s leaning over two cups of tea. Louis walks over and slots himself under Nick’s arm, making him spill the milk a little bit. 

“Thanks for brekky,” he says, wrapping his arm around Nick’s back. 

“Always,” Nick says. “Oh – can you remind me to make sure we put those extra blankets in the car before we go?” 

“Yep,” Louis says, knowing full well that they’ll probably both forget. 

They eat breakfast together, ankles tangled, and then Louis does the dishes while Nick feeds Pig and takes her out before they leave. 

“All good?” Nick asks, hand outstretched. 

Louis tangles their fingers together and grins.

“All good.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you thought :)


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